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Skype For SIP Beta

Via Pat Phelan, I signed up telEvolution Inc. for the Beta. We’ll see if we hear back or if they accept us.

It looks like Skype For SIP supports calling from Skype into a SIP PBX, but not calling a Skype user (free call) from a SIP PBX. It supports placing calls from SIP using SkypeOut, though, so we’ll see.

UPDATE: via Skype Journal, I see that “Skype for SIP” maps one Skype username to one IP address (SIP address?) – this is basically for “Skype Me” buttons and to let Skype users ring your PBX.

It also lets a businesses use SkypeOut for outgoing calls. As Phil notes, Skypeout rates are higher than what businesses can already get from typical SIP termination providers, so I’m not sure what the win is there.

So, all in all, “Skype for SIP” is not the SIP interoperability everyone is asking for. For better SIP/Skype interoperability, we still need to turn to third parties like OpenSky. On the other hand, while “Skype for SIP” appears to be a pretty small step toward Skype/SIP interoperability, it is at least a step, and we should give them some credit for that.

2 Responses to Skype For SIP Beta

Skype for SIP allows multiple Skype IDs to be mapped through to a single SIP identity. During the beta period, we are only supporting a 1 to 1 mapping due to the advanced Business Control Panel (BCP) configuration portal not yet being available at this time. If a company wishes to configure multiple Skype ID’s mapped to a SIP identity, we can accommodate this for a subset of the beta trial participants.

I think “any to any” is what people really want, not “many to one”. e.g. a way to dial arbitrary user XYZ on SIP host ABC.COM And vice versa, a way (like OpenSky offers) of dialing arbitrary Skype user XYZ from SIP.

In the mean time, at least now we have a way to that a Skype user can call a (specific) SIP account with “Skype for SIP” and a way to dial from SIP to any Skype user with Opensky. It’s all progress.